When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I picked up the bucket seats from the upholstery shop about 2 weeks ago. These seats were taken from a BMW M3 convertible, and I needed to change out the power connectors on the seats to a Packard type connector and finish the under seat harnesses in order to power them up. The upholstery guy thought I was a little crazy when I asked him to remove the beautiful black leather seat covers and replace them with white vinyl. He did a pretty good job replicating the pleated and piping patterns to look like the factory seat pattern. One really neat feature was the addition of "442" numbers on the headrest. He sent some material out to an embroidery shop that matched the colors to a screen shot I got off the internet. I think the headrests turned out really nice!
I had some commercial type carpet leftover from a job so I cut it to fit the trunk floor to dress up the trunk and quiet the road noise. I then finished up the trunk-end of the stereo wiring and mounted the amp on the RH side of the trunk. Here's some pics.
Rodney
The BMW M3 bucket seats covered in Pearl White vinyl.
Check out the "442" logos on the headrests.
Got all the wiring finished so I could install the carpet and the newly recovered BMW seats. I ran the stereo signal wires on the RH side of the floor pan and the power and speaker wiring on the LH side. This should help prevent electrical noise from getting into the amp inputs. I sprayed Lizard Skin sound control and ceramic insulation on the floor pan and inner wheelhouses to quiet the engine noise and keep my feet cool.
The carpeted trunk floor and the JL Audio 8-channel amp. The amp is mounted to a 1/2" piece of plywood that I screwed to the metal "fin" that hangs down where the inner trunk sheetmetal meets with the rear quarter panel and inner wheel houses.
Last edited by cdrod; November 19th, 2022 at 03:53 PM.
Really nice work you are doing. My front bumper had a similar issue. I hooked one end of a chain to it and the other to my Explorer tow hitch and slowly backed up. Now it's a little too forward in the center, but better. Good luck with the alignment issues. I have found that a little bend here or there is really hard to detect but seem to all add up to gap differences. At least with a new bumper you'll know it's straight and can work from there. The seats really look great and again you have done a beautiful job and your attention to detail is impressive!
Nice build, too bad the bodyshop didn’t mark and save all the shims, I hope the front clip alignment will be successful without having to do frame work.
Rocket On
Did you fit the deck lid ahead of time?
I am having a heck of a time getting mine right.
Got the gaps pretty close but the height to the quarters is too high,
after 6-8 hrs of fine-tuning the tail section with a 2x4 and a BFH I got it pretty close.
Hope you don't have the same issue.
Did you fit the deck lid ahead of time?
I am having a heck of a time getting mine right.
Got the gaps pretty close but the height to the quarters is too high,
after 6-8 hrs of fine-tuning the tail section with a 2x4 and a BFH I got it pretty close.
Hope you don't have the same issue.
Did you try using shims to bring the trunk lid down? The shims need to go between the hinge and trunk lid on the bolt closest to the body (lower hinge bolt when trunk is open). It sounds a little counter intuitive to add a shim between the trunk lid and hinge in order to bring the lid down, but adding shims to only the the bolt closest to the body makes the hinge close at a lower angle and will bring the lid down.
Tim:
The trunk lid is one of the few body panels that is original to the car, so I didn't have much difficulty getting it to fit well. The body shop temporarily installed the new trunk seal to make sure the lid wouldn't sit too high. Be careful with the 2x4 approach, you can really get things out of wack, I like Loaded68W34's idea to use shims if the lid is too high.
Rodney
Tim:
The trunk lid is one of the few body panels that is original to the car, so I didn't have much difficulty getting it to fit well. The body shop temporarily installed the new trunk seal to make sure the lid wouldn't sit too high. Be careful with the 2x4 approach, you can really get things out of wack, I like Loaded68W34's idea to use shims if the lid is too high.
Rodney
I'll take a look at the shims but I had to put a shim on the outer bolts to get the leading edge of the deck lid flush with the piece behind the back seat (not sure what that is called)
With all the welding of the trunk that I had to do and the fact the tail panel was pushed in at one point, I am not sure if I have/had a choice with the 2x4.
I put a paper towel between the lid and its mating surface by sliding it across I could determine high spots, and persuaded them down till the lid sat tight across the entire surface.
At that point, the deck lid is almost even with the seal in place. (passenger side is almost perfect driver's side could come down a tiny bit).
Sorry to hijack your thread.
Very nice! I really like that seat approach. Had I paid attention I might have followed your lead instead of getting the Scat seats.
Body alignment is where I very (very) quickly hit "good enough" and stop messing with it. I just cannot make useful progress on panels.
On the repop bumpers, expect one or both light buckets to be welded incorrectly. The one I got was straight and had very good chrome (for a modern repop), but both buckets were welded with the same jig, meaning the LH light was all kinds of cattywampus. I called the vendor, they called the manufacturer, the manufacturer literally said "no one else has been that picky"! But they were willing to refund and take it back. I made it work by bending the snot out of the tabs and severely elongating the holes since I expect all of them in that batch were made the same way. I think I started a thread on here with pictures and whatnot.
The first back bumper had a strip of nickel (1/16"x2") simply gone - down to the copper. It was a bit hard to notice at first glance, so inspect thoroughly. The chrome on both is a little bit wavy - it's obvious on the rear bumper but much harder to notice on the front.
Jason:
Thank you for the heads up on the bumpers. I will look them over closely and check for the light bucket issue you described. I bought both bumpers from Jegs.com on a holiday discount with free shipping; the bumpers are Golden Star as they seemed to have the fewest complaints.
Rodney
Awesome work.
Got any pics of the convertible top frame mounting points and hardware where the frame mounts to the car as well as the cylinders attaching points and hardware?
I seem to be missing a few pieces.
Also, did you glue the underside tacking strip on the header bow or just rely on the teeth and extra screws?
Tim:
For the bows I used 3M weatherstrip adhesive (the black stuff) under the new tacking strips. Go back and look at Post 267, Pic #5 shows how I clamped the tacking strips while the 3M adhesive set up. Starting in the center I worked my way outward. I drilled small pilot holes followed by a countersink bit to make sure the screws would be flush with the tacking material. The plastic tacking material will compress a little so I was careful not remove too much with the countersink bit. I did the RH side first and left the clamps on for 24 hours, then did the LH side. Each side of the header bow was missing 4-5 "teeth"; I only used 3M adhesive at the edges where I used screws to hold the tacking material. In the middle the "teeth" were in good shape and I felt the tacking material would be well secured without the need for the 3M glue.
Here are some pics of the attaching points for the ram cylinder and the bolts that secure them. The ram body rotates on 2 pins; one is welded to the mounting bracket, the other pivot point is a shoulder bolt that screws it from the opposite side. At the end of the ram cylinder piston is an eyelet, this mounts into a saddle with a thru bolt and some plastic bushings with wave washers on each end.
Rodney
This pic shows all the pivot hardware for the the top frame. I'm a very visual learner so I laid everything out relative to where it goes on the top frame. The bottom of the pic shows the ram cylinder mounting hardware.
This is the bolt for the eyelet at the end of the ram piston.
This is the shoulder bolt that holds the ram cylinder into the mounting bracket.
Last edited by cdrod; February 5th, 2023 at 04:44 AM.
Tim:
Sorry for the tardy reply, I've been away from my car project for awhile. Are you referring to this bow (see red arrow in the picture)? I measured the original thicknesses when I disassembled the top frame and tagged & bagged each piece of tacking material to reference later if needed. The second pic below shows the original tacking material for this bow and it does sit a bit proud of the bow rail. I think this was done to protect the top and the frame pads from the attaching bolts that are installed form the bottom. There also is a "T" shaped, metal piece called the "bow sleeve retainer" that inserts inside the channel of this bow to capture the frame pads between the tacking material and the retainer. Mine was missing but I found a repop'd part for sale on eBay from Convertible Top Specialists and was surprised to find it fit perfectly, without modifications!
This is a picture of the original tacking material. It sits just a bit proud of the bow.
Last edited by cdrod; March 2nd, 2023 at 02:25 AM.
For those of you following along at home, you may remember back in Post#320 I had some issues installing the front bumper. The bumper was a used part (not new), but also not original to this car and was slightly pushed in at the center (as many are). You may also remember back in Post#221 I had elongate the mounting holes in the core support to slide it further to the RH driver side of the car to get the hood to fender gaps to work out. I bought a new, repop'd bumper just to eliminate the chance that the used bumper I was trying to fit was bent. Unfortunately the new bumper didn't fit any better than the used one (although it wasn't push in at the center.
I decided to send the car out to a frame shop and have them take measurements to see if the frame is bent. To my surprise the frame shop said my frame was surprisingly straight; it has only a slight twist in the middle (5mm), it's 6mm too high at the right rear (which I already knew about) and the core support points are only 3-4mm offset to the right. My bumper alignment problem is about 1/2" (12-13mm) so that doesn't completely explain the bumper offset problem. Even though the frame measurements don't deviate enough to explain the bumper offset, I think the frame shop will end up pulling the frame horns to the left to correct the bumper offset. I've been kicking myself for not having the frame checked before powder-coating and reassembly, but the frame guy said if I had brought them the bare frame they probably wouldn't have tried to straighten the frame horns given the offset was only a few mm.
Here's a pic of the car waiting at the frame shop. The second pic is the frame report showing the height, length and width measurements of the frame. There is a larger pdf file in the attachments if you can't read the pic in the post.
Rodney
This is the frame report. The numbers in boxes above the frame diagram show the heights (top number is RH, lower number is LH). The numbers below the diagram show the lengths measured from the F-B center of the frame. The numbers inside the diagram show the widths measured from the centerline of the frame to each side rail.
Last edited by cdrod; March 4th, 2023 at 11:07 AM.
Hey Rodney, great work thought about doing the same thing but wasn't sure if it would work until @tkcutlass sent me to your post. But on the connectors , you can't use the factory ones ( if you have seats and harness side )?
sorry I wasn't clear. So I'm getting the seats from a BMW 330 convertible that comes with the wire connector on the seat side and also the connector from the car harness side. So my question is if I can use the factory BMW wiring plugs or do what you did.
The BMW seats I used didn't come with the harness side pigtails. I looked into buying the connectors and terminals from BMW but my wallet had a heart attack, and the minimum quantities for the terminals was 1000 pieces. I really wanted to get the seat heaters and the seat position memory to work, but both require a BMW body module to function properly. My solution was to disassemble the BMW connectors and re-pin just the power, ground and seat heater wires into a 4-way Packard 56 connector, as I may try to get the seat heaters to work in the future. I taped off all the other un-used wires and carefully tucked them into the seat frames where they would not get tangled or cut when the seat moves. Be extremely careful when handling the seat belt retractor wires, these are explosive devices and you don't want to set them off.
Awesome thanks for the info. I'm kinda lucky the salvage yard I found them at are having me go there and taking the seats out myself, so I'm going to grab as much as I can. On the wires did you go online to find the color codes and see what went were or to what?
I brought the car home from the frame shop this week. The front bumper is now on the car and fits better side-to-side, but I'm not happy with how it fits in other places. I bought a repop'd front bumper from Jegs.com (GoldenStar PN BU04-71F). I can't be certain, but it looks like the bumper is not shaped properly; the center "nose" section is turned out & not level, and the RH side doesn't track the stone shield very well. Has anyone experienced these fitment issues with the GoldenStar front bumper? Any tips or suggestions? Here's a few pics.
Rodney
It's good to see the front end looking more like a complete car!
LH side pocket
RH side pocket doesn't fit as well as the LH side
The center "nose" seems tilted down toward the front.
The RH side doesn't track parallel with the headlight housing; the gap widens. It's larger at the outside edge of the headlight housing than it is on the inside edge.
Last edited by cdrod; April 2nd, 2023 at 04:54 AM.
I'm getting ready for a new windshield and could you a little guidance as it's been several years since I disassembled this car. I have these large clips that I only labeled "windshield" when I tagged & bagged them 11 years ago. I've looked in the assembly manual and the Fisher Body book but can't find any reference to these clips. The Fisher book gives specs for windshield blocks but no mention of the tabs; perhaps this was an Olds only thing. There seem to be two possible places for them to mount on the cowl. I think they fit better toward the middle but there are screw holes farther out by the fenders. I vaguely remember a smaller clip nearer the fender but don't have anything tagged & bagged for this spot. Anybody know the correct location for these clips and is there another clip that I'm missing? Thanks
Rodney
I labeled these clips "windshield" when I removed then 11 years ago.
They seem to fit better in the upper location (nearer the defroster vent). Am I missing a smaller clip that mounts in the lower position (nearer the fender)?
Last edited by cdrod; April 2nd, 2023 at 04:53 AM.
Worked on the tail light assemblies this weekend; the springs behind several of the contacts were broken and wouldn't make a reliable connection to the light bulb pins. I also wanted to install LED bulbs for brighter and quicker tail lights, but most of the LED bulbs have a large shoulder which prevented them from seating fully into the factory sockets. My solution was to remove the factory sockets and replace them with repair sockets. I tested a few different parts before I found one from Standard Motor Products that would fit into the tail light housings and receive the larger LED bulbs. The wiring was also brittle and stiff so I purchased some 16awg wire in the factory brown and green colors and built new wiring harness as well.
Here's some pics:
Rodney
__________
First I used a 1" round burr bit to grind down the brass socket which is crimped on to the housing. I ground away just enough to remove the socket being careful not to grind into the housing metal.
Sockets removed, headed to the sand blasting cabinet to remove the old paint and rust.
This is the S91 repair socket from Standard Motor Products used to replace the worn out factory sockets. The white wire in the pic is a dedicated ground wire that will be grounded directly to the body sheetmetal in the trunk.
This is the finished product with a thick coat of gloss white Rustoleum spray paint and some red 1157 LED bulbs from Amazon.
The repair sockets where attached and sealed to the housings with JB Weld.
Final assemblies with new sockets and wiring. I'm waiting on delivery of some white wire to finish the ground wires.
I did some night testing of the new & improved tail light assemblies. The LED bulbs on the lo setting were definitely brighter than the standard incandescent bulbs, but on the hi setting the difference was less discernible. The LED response time was super fast (instant "on") where the standard bulb took much longer to reach full brightness, and the LED was more intense. This LED1157 bulb is sold under the iBrightstar label on Amazon.
Here's some pics:
Rodney
_______
The standard, incandescent bulbs are on the left, iBrightstar LEDs on the right. This is the tail light "lo" setting. LED is definitely brighter and more intense.
On the brake/turn light, "hi" setting the brightness was nearly the same, although the LED on the right is more intense. with a "hot spot" in the middle.
I did some more experimenting with LED 1157 bulbs for the tail lights. I started this adventure with some LED 1157 bulbs from Amazon made by Brishine, they were advertised on Amazon as 300% brighter than halogen 1157s, 1000 Lumen light output and assembled with 24 SMD2835 LED chips. I think the lumen spec was overstated, probably closer to 500-600 lumen based on LED chip data I found on line.
I moved on to some LED 1157 bulbs made by iBrightstar. These were also advertised as 300% brighter than halogen bulbs with no lumen spec and assembled with 54 SMD3014 chips and 3 SMD2835 on the end behind and magnifying lens. These were much brighter than the Brishine bulbs, but when I compared them to standard incandescent bulbs the light output was not substantially more. I estimate the light output to be in the 1000 lumen range.
Next up for my LED trials was another Amazon product from Phinlion. These bulbs did not boast about being brighter than halogens, but stated 1400 lumen output per bulb and were assembled with a whopping 100 SMD3014 chips and 3 SMD2835 chips on the end. These bulbs are really bright and exactly what I was looking for when I started my pursuit of intense brake lights with a fast response time. The tighter packaging of the LED chips provided a more even and complete illumination of the tail light lens. The previous bulbs in my test definitely had a "hot" spot in the middle with less coverage at the edges of the lens. The Phinlion bulbs illuminated the tail light lens completely without a discernable "hot spot". Unfortunately, only the Brishine bulbs would fit into the stock tail light housings without modification.
Here's some pics
Rodney
These are the three LED 1157 bulbs I tested; all three are Chinese made and sold on Amazon. You can see the difference in coverage with the Brishine bulbs (on the left) having the fewest SMD chips and the Phinlion bulbs (on the right) having the most. The iBrightstar bulbs are in the middle.
Here's a rear night shot with the Phinlion bulbs on the low, tail light mode.
This shot is the Phinlion bulbs on the high, brake light mode.
I had hernia surgery last Friday; doc told me not to drive for a week so I've been stuck at the house, getting a little stir-crazy. I felt pretty good today so I did a few little car "projects". I blasted the interior windshield header pieces and sprayed them with SEM "Landau Black" interior trim paint from a rattle can. I think they turned out nicely, so I turned my attention to the plastic kick panels. The RH side was in good shape, but the LH side was exposed to the full sun for years and the plastic was very faded. I cleaned these very thoroughly with dish soap and warm water to see if the faded plastic would disintegrate from the hard scrubbing, and both panels survived so I followed up the dish soap cleaning with the SEM prep which is a wax & grease remover and another soap & water bath. After they dried I followed the SEM directions and applied 2 coats of the adhesion promoter which softens the plastic to help the top coat paint to bond with the plastic.
Next up is the vinyl wrap that goes over the windshield header. I bought this vinyl strip from Patton Glade a while back and need to glue it to the metal channel above the windshield. I have two 3M spray adhesives in the garage, not sure which one is the better product for this purpose. The 3M "Super Spray Adhesive" is very tacky but sprays out in a spider web kind of mesh, the 3M #80 is spec'd for rubber and vinyl so maybe this is probably the better thing to use. Any advice would be appreciated!
Here's some pics:
Rodney
These are the metal interior header panels that install across the top of the windshield. I sand blasted them and sprayed them with SEM "Landau Black".
This is the "after" shot.
Sprayed the kick panels with the same SEM product but use the SEM adhesion promoter for better paint bonding to the plastic.
Next up is the windshield header vinyl. I'm not sure what adhesive to use.
I have these two 3M products in the garage, not sure which one to use for the windshield vinyl wrap.
Rodney, I just came across this thread and have subscribed. All I can say is.. mad skills my friend, mad skills!! Your attention to detail is beyond words! You're on the home stretch now and soon you will see the fruits of all of your labor! Well done and I'll be looking forward to the final step!
Rodney, I just came across this thread and have subscribed. All I can say is.. mad skills my friend, mad skills!! Your attention to detail is beyond words! You're on the home stretch now and soon you will see the fruits of all of your labor! Well done and I'll be looking forward to the final step!
Thanks for the compliments. This is not my first car project but it is my first frame-off restoration. I started this project as part of my bucket list and wanted to do as much of the work as possible. I'm pleased to say I've done everything except the engine machine work, transmission rebuild and the final paint. I'm currently working on some dash modifications, converting the ashtray compartment into a storage pocket large enough to hold an iPhone.
I'll post up some pics soon.
I haven't tackled the windshield header vinyl yet; I'll need to mask off the car before spraying the 3M adhesive so I moved on to a smaller project. I'm not a smoker, and I'll never need the cigarette lighter that's mounted behind the ashtray door in the dash, so I decided to remove the cig lighter socket and the metal ashtray to make a larger pocket big enough to hold an iphone. To do this, I bought a 12x12 sheet of ABS plastic and some ABS plumbing cement on eBay, then carefully cutout the plastic ashtray mounting socket where the cig lighter mounts and enclosed the space with the ABS material. I didn't want to lose the 12v socket, and my original, stock, socket was in pretty bad shape so I bought a new socket from Amazon. The stock lighter socket has threads on the end to receive a metal retainer which holds everything tight. I thought it turned out well and reusing the factory bezel helps this mod to look original to the car.
Here's some pics.
Rodney
This is the factory cigarette lighter socket and the threaded retainer.
The new socket was a bit too short and lacked the threaded end for the retainer. I carefully cut off the threaded end and tacked it onto the new socket with my MIG welder.
This pic shows the plastic socket that I cut out of the old dash and glued below the map light.
I cut the hole with a 1-5/8" hole saw being careful to keep the speed low as the ABS easily melts from the friction of the saw.
It should look stock, once the woodgrain is added to the dash.
Here's a shot of the cigarette lighter in the new hole.
I grafted the LH side of the ashtray slide further to the left to make a pocket large enough to fit an iphone.
This is the back side; I filled in the gaps with the ABS sheet material purchased on eBay.
Last edited by cdrod; June 11th, 2023 at 04:21 PM.
Nice work on the ashtray dash cubicle!
I trust you sent the front bumper back, no way it could fit like oem.
I haven't sent the bumper back. Unfortunately, I sprayed the backside with flat black paint to protect from the elements, not sure the vendor will accept the return.
Last edited by cdrod; June 18th, 2023 at 06:41 PM.
I got a new problem, I can't get the top frame to extended fully to the windshield header. The passenger side gets close enough that the latch hook could pull it the rest of the way, but the driver side is easily 1/2" too short and the alignment pin is pretty far off as well. When I bought the car it was sitting in a west Texas cornfield and the hydraulic cylinders were rusted in the down position: the mechanism was stuck as well. After several liberal applications of PB blaster, I was able to move the top frame by hand but I never thought to check the fitment at the windshield before removing it from the car so I have no idea if it was aligned properly before stripping the car.
I have followed the Fisher Body instructions for adjusting the frame mechanism, the front header bow is fully extended forward as far as it will go.
This is fully up, the pump motor is whining badly if I try I try to push it further.
This side shot show how far off the latch hook is from the receiver.
November 19th, 2022, 03:49 PM
